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Geopolitics Ideas

The Troubling Rise Of The Far Right In Europe

From Greece to France to Austria, political parties espousing anti-immigrant, anti-euro policies are making gains across Europe.

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Society

City’s Most Desperate Search For Revenue Ever? Madrid May Fine Panhandlers

Panhandlers, window-cleaners and street peddlers would be targeted in plan put forth by the mayor of the heavily indebted Spanish capital. Good luck collecting…

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Society

How Renewable Energy Has Fueled Iceland’s Miraculous Comeback

KEFLAVIK — The first thing that strikes you on landing at Keflavik International Airport is the weather. It’s raining. The clouds hang so low that it looks like you could reach out and touch them. Welcome to Iceland. A land mass covering 103,000 square kilometers, Iceland is a little larger than Hungary, but at 330,000 […]

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Geopolitics

How To Avoid Arrest In Egypt? A Trip To The Barbershop

GIZA — The barber is named Wissam Ibrahim. His shop in this bustling city south of Cairo is halfway up Pyramid Street, a road that is now almost permanently blocked with traffic. Clients come down four steps into the small basement salon next to the temple-like water reservoir. Two plush chairs with headrests give the […]

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Geopolitics Ideas

Smile Of A Snow Queen: Why Angela Merkel’s Power Is A Risk Even To Herself

BERLIN — Angela Merkel’s triumph in the German elections has a paradoxical flipside, as her unprecedented political strength may wind up undermining even her own interests. The Chancellor is reminiscent of an introverted child prodigy who is streets ahead of all her classmates but stands alone in the playground because the others know they can […]

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Geopolitics Ideas

Why Merkel’s Victory Was A Big Win For Europe (But Now The Hard Part)

BERLIN – Germany has voted for stability and consensus. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s position has been confirmed with a convincing result. She has been entrusted with power for another four years, and will continue to lead the country with her cautious, considered politics. Strategy and long-term success form the yardstick for her short-term tactics. It is […]

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Geopolitics

Why So Many Educated Germans Will Skip Sunday’s Vote

BERLIN — It is becoming chic in Germany not to vote — and to make sure that everyone knows that you didn’t. It used to be just the poor and unemployed who failed to show at the polls, and, ashamed, they hid that fact. Now abstainers come from educated, well-off circles, and opinion polls warn […]

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Economy Future

BMW Wants To Use Old Electric Car Batteries To Store Solar Energy

BERLIN — BMW plans to introduce its electric i3 car this year, which raises the question of what’s going to happen to the old batteries that, for the purpose of powering electric cars, must be discarded well before they have actually been depleted. It’s a riddle the car company is hoping to solve together with […]

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Economy Food / Travel

Air Passenger Rights Under Assault in Europe

Long flight delays have a price, but the airline industry is applying serious downward pressure on European regulators.

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Geopolitics Society

Notes From The Only Man Who Entered Auschwitz Voluntarily

A Polish army officer got himself deported to Auschwitz to document war crimes in the concentration camp. Now for the first time, Germans can read this vivid account.

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Society

Welcome To The World’s Biggest And Best-Run Animal Shelter

Don’t call it a *pound* – Berlin’s Hohenschönhausen houses a huge number of formerly stray dogs, cats and other species in luxe-like quarters and remarkably attentive individual care.

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Society

Yes, The NSA Is Tracking You. Get Over It

A German writer is fed up with the hypocrisy of an exhibitionist society outraged by the limits of privacy. Yes, you are being monitored. Now get back to your celebrity Twitter feed.

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Eyes on the U.S. Geopolitics

The Wimp Factor: Why Obama Risks Winding Up Like Jimmy Carter

The legacy of the 44th president of the United States is in peril, as he is seen as weak-willed with an unfocused foreign policy. Is it 1979 all over again?

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Society

Virtual Therapy Gives “Couch Surfing” A New Meaning

BERLIN — The understanding voice, the way the therapist slides the box of tissues over when you get emotional, the warm pat on the shoulder and the handshake as you leave. Can you imagine psychotherapy without these comforting human niceties? If so, consider replacing these face-to-face sessions with online therapy. Results of a University of […]

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Society

Working Out Is Good For You … Until It’s Not

In Germany, eight university hospitals have opened outpatient sports psychiatry facilities to treat depression for the “over-worked-out.”

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Society

“Changing Sides” – What Bankers Can Learn From Addicts

HAMBURG – Frank Gundelach is a numbers guy. He knows about stock market prices, interest payments and going rates for real estate. In fact, his boss at Sparkasse bank in Hamburg promoted him to lead the real estate department — a position with many responsibilities, and the perfect job for a rational person like him. […]

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Geopolitics Society

In Mumbai, Thousands Toil In The World’s Largest Laundry

India’s working poor include more than 5,000 men and women at one facility who wash and iron clothes by hand 14 hours a day, seven days a week, earning barely enough to survive.

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Future

The Astonishing Sex Lives Of Slugs

BERLIN – Chances are, you don’t know anyone with professional interests quite like biologist Heike Reise. She and her colleagues at Germany’s Senckenberg Museum of Natural History in Görlitz are studying the sex life of slugs, also known as “naked snails” for their lack of shells. Every year the scientists catch and observe primarily field […]

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Society

Germany Claims Royal Baby As Its Own, Literally

BERLIN – It wouldn’t have to be a real monarchy. But a little royal glamor, just a taste of that feeling that we too had a special family with grand historic traditions: that would be nice. And how great it would be if we had something like a due date that stirred commotion nationwide, and […]

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blog Economy

Can Formula One Survive Without Bernie Ecclestone?

The 82-year-old “godfather” of F1 has built the motor sport into a billion-dollar business with a very Bernie-centric system. But bribery charges may force the sport to find a new formula.

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Society

Tweet Offensive: Social Media Is Israeli Military’s Newest Weapon

The Israeli Defense Forces’ one-of-a-kind Internet strategy aims to bypass an international media known for unfriendly fire.

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Economy

How A Franco-German Spat Over Mercedes Sheds Doubt On EU’s Most Basic Rules

Berlin-based Die Welt is not taking lightly a recent EU directive that backed French bans on imports of new models of German-built Mercedes.

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Society

Lost Berlin Cat Reunited With Owner After Five Years

BERLIN – It’s an animal story with a happy ending, five years in the making. A Berlin woman who’d lost her tabby cat “Pauley” in 2008 had an almost unthinkable surprise waiting for her at the capital’s Tierheim animal shelter. “When I got the letter a few days ago from the shelter saying my cat […]

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blog Society

Hong Kong’s Sweeping Cultural Prestige Offensive

Plans include a modern art museum double the size of London’s Tate Modern, the world’s most visited museum.

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Future

The Trabi, East Germany’s VW Beetle Offers Clunky Nostalgia

BERLIN – Anyone who owns a Trabant — or “Trabi” as the East German cars are called these days, often with a mixture of affection and amused derision — really wants to own one. But probably not as a financial investment, because even a beautifully maintained Trabant P601 fetches no more than 3,000 euros. Instead, […]

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Society

Lessons For Old Europe From Japan’s Shrinking Population

In Japanese schools, parents come and talk about the upside of starting a family. The number of places in day care centers is being expanded; on the walls, posters show male celebrities touting the advantages of being a dad. In view of demographic change, the Asian archipelago nation is trying all it can to get […]

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Economy

On The Threshold Of A New Era Of Global Inflation

Rising prices in the developing world will eventually usher in a whole new paradigm on global currency markets.

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Society

Tunisian Art Dealer Tests Limits Of Islamists With Otto Dix Nudes

DJERBA – Otto Dix in Tunisia? Sounds like a mistake, a geographical accident, as if somebody or something got on the wrong plane. Not so. There really are some 100 works — sketches, drawings, oils — by famed German New Objectivity artist Otto Dix (1891-1969) on exhibit on the holiday island of Djerba. On the […]

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Geopolitics Ideas

In Egypt, The Rapidly Shrinking Influence Of Washington And The West

BERLIN – After the fall of Mohammed Morsi in Egypt, the West is still trying to figure out what words to use to describe what is happening. In Berlin, no one wants to use the P-word, so instead of referring to a military putsch, Germany’s Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle spoke of a “stay in democratic […]

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Ideas

That Imperfect Aspiration We Call Democracy

From Rio to Cairo, from Snowden to Erdogan, the excess and limits of the popular will.

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Society

Can Baghdad Reclaim Its Title As Intellectual Capital Of The Middle East?

BAGHDAD — On Fridays, you can get a taste of just how special Mutanabbi Street used to be. For a couple of hours once a week, this neighborhood in the Iraqi capital returns to its former glory when everybody who is anybody in the Baghdad’s art and culture scene is out on the famous “book […]

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Ideas

Selective Outrage: Glorifying Snowden, While Dictators Slide By

– Op-Ed – BERLIN – Two people recently “disappeared” into the vastness that is China. The whole world is talking about one of them: Edward Snowden whose revelations about digital spying by the National Security Agency have fueled fear and indignation. Big Brother, your name was and is USA. Nobody is talking about photographer and […]

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Society

Has Legalized Prostitution Turned Germany’s Government Into A *Pimp*?

A new documentary on German television uncovers the notable tax revenue and nationwide implications of being the “biggest whorehouse in Europe.”

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Society

Taksim In Berlin: What Germany’s Huge Turkish Population Thinks Of Erdogan

BERLIN – At the end of Oranienstrasse in the Berlin borough of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, Gürkan runs a tailor shop. The 41-year-old conservative Muslim, of Turkish origins, is all for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan“s taking a hard-line stance against demonstrators in Turkey, who began their protests over development plans in central Istanbul’s Gezi park. “He has […]

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Global Gourmet

You Haven’t Really Tasted Oysters Until You’ve Tried Them In Chile

SANTIAGO – We know that Chilean writer and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) was a serious gourmet – something that his considerable girth attested to. So it’s no surprise if among his many poems there’s also an Ode to Conger Chowder. The conger – a giant eel called congrio in Chile – […]

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Society

When An Army Trainer Changes Careers To Teach Kindergarten

In Germany, efforts are on to increase the number of male teachers. Here’s the tale of a veteran of the war in Afghanistan who wound up on very different terrain.

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Global Gourmet

Fresher Than Raw: Extreme Foodies Savor Fare That’s … ALIVE!

Eat that octopus before it slithers away, call the maggots to your turning cheese, and other moving selections from the living menu.

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Economy

In Germany, Companies Keeping Workers Fit So They Can Work Longer

BERLIN – The shock came in his first year of training. His employer – the BMW motorcycle factory in Berlin-Spandau – asked Johann Gundel to don a strange suit: the “age suit,” with weights in it. Gundel could hardly move in the suit. His joints stiffened, and every step was an effort. Gundel, blond, slim […]

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Society

Meet The Pro Pick-Up Artists Helping German Men Get The *Fraulein*

That’s just one way to say, “getting in the sack…,” which is all they’re about. Are you impressed?

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Ideas

Should East German Symbols Be Banned Like The Nazi Swastika?

After a wave of nostalgia for the Communist regime of East Germany, debate is opened in Germany about whether Communism was as bad as Nazism.

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